


PTSD

by rxttenk1d



Category: Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Blood, Body disfiguration, Death, Gore, PTSD, Panic Attacks, Vietnam War, flash backs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-25
Updated: 2017-10-25
Packaged: 2019-01-23 00:23:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12494240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rxttenk1d/pseuds/rxttenk1d
Summary: You can not weep for the man next to you who was shot clean through his helmet. You don’t realise the fact that you are covered in mud, and the blood and matter of your friends. You have no time to register a bomb going off meters away, only the fact that you are ok, and you need to wipe your best mate’s blood from your face, and go.-War is not merciful to those who survive.





	PTSD

**Author's Note:**

> This bitch is unbeta’d as f u c k

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental health condition that's triggered by a terrifying event — either experiencing it or witnessing it. Symptoms may include flashbacks, nightmares and severe anxiety, as well as uncontrollable thoughts about the event

~~

When you are in the midst of battle, you do not have time to process what has happened.

You can not weep for the man next to you who was shot clean through his helmet. You don’t realise the fact that you are covered in mud, and the blood and matter of your friends. You have no time to register a bomb going off meters away, only the fact that you are ok, and you need to wipe your best mate’s blood from your face, and go.

And when it is all over, then and only then, you can take it in. 

But the emotions do not trickle in like a stream through a quiet mountain forest.

They do not drip down into the puddle of your mind like a leaking tap.

Our brain is unmerciful.

The emotions you did not register out there descend on you like a tsunami on a beach, crashing in and destroying, leaving no survivors and unmercifully beating down well structured buildings that had taken years to form. 

Well, that’s what it felt like to Private David Jacobs.

It was when he sat at home for the first time in months, emotionless, his Mom and Dad and Sarah all hugging him and crying and smiling at him. All it took was a backfiring car out in the street. 

Then he wasn’t at home anymore.

“Crutchie! Get down!” Captain Kelly screamed, as a bomb flew over head. David watched in horror as it hit the blonde hair boy, and Jack swore loudly, grabbing the back of David’s collar and pulling him back as he was splattered with blood.

“Oh fuck- fuck, fuck, fuck”

David stared at the ground, gun clenched tightly in his hands. He couldn’t breathe. He was covered in blood and mud and gunpowder and he couldn’t breathe- oh fuck he couldn’t breathe-

“Snap out of it mouth, holy fuck! Let’s go! Go! Go!” Jack pulled him up, and he ran blindly, following Jack deeper and deeper into the heart of battle. Bombs exploded around them, and the steady pop-pop-pop of bullets shook him to the bone as he ran, not realising what was going on, his emotions shutting down completely. 

“Fuck- mouth!-” 

He was grabbed, and felt himself being pushed down, and there was a ringing in his ears as he heard someone- fuck- Mush- oh god Mush-

“My legs! I can’t feel my legs!”

Mush rolled off of him, screaming. Where his legs were, were bloody, torn stumps, from which bones protruded, all shattered and messily broken.

“Davey! Davey!” Mush screamed, gripping his arms, “oh god, my legs!”

Jack grabbed mush, screaming “Medic! Medic! Medic!”

A blonde haired boy came scrabbling over the lip of the trench, single eye widening as he saw his best friend- his brother- lying in the dirt screaming, his legs meters away.

“Oh fuck- oh fuck- mushy- mushy I’m coming-” blink yelled, running towards him. He pulled morphine out of his pocket and bandages, dropping to his knees. Davey saw the clear skin on his face where tears have already started pouring down, and blink had pushed the needle of the morphine package into his stomach. He started to bandage his legs, the ground already soaked with blood as mush screamed and sobbed- “my legs- Louis- I can’t feel them”

“Michael it’s gonna be ok”

“What happened to my legs!?”

And then jack was pulling David away, and deeper and deeper. It was like a rabbit hole- every twist and turn leading him father away from the safety of home, and closer towards his death. 

Pop. Pop. Pop.

Jack went down with a scream. Davey cried out as he was pulled down with him. 

The war raged on around him.

“Jack! Jack!l

Jack was bleeding from his mouth.

“Hey... m-mouth... do me a favour...”

“Jack- don’t speak- don’t speak-“

“Tell my pa I love him?”

“Medic! Please! Medic!”

“Can you do that for me?”

“Jack you’ll be able to do that for yourself- you’re gonna be ok- you will- Medic! Please!”

“Don’t lie to me Davey. I’m dying. Look at me-“

Jack coughed once, then twice, then three times. Each time, Davey was sprayed with blood. 

“Jack- no jack- wake up! Please!” Davey shook jack’s dead body, and then there was a hand pulling him up. 

“Spot, help me get him back to base-“

“He’s dead, Davey. I’m sorry”

“No he’s not- jack- jack wake up”

“Davey. Davey. David-“

And then he was back.

And his mother was shaking him, sobbing. He had gripped the arms of the chair so hard that his fingers ached and his knuckles were white, and he was staring at nothing as tears poured down his cheeks. 

“Davey please, baby, come back to us- come back to mommy-“

He inhaled deeply, and then he broke. He started to sob- body shaking, gut wrenching sobs that had him hunched over, gripping his hair, eyes squeezed shut as he saw mush lying there, and heard his screams, clear as day in his head. 

“Mush- oh god mushy it was all my fault- if I wasn’t looking where I was going he’d still be walking I can still hear his screams- I don’t know if he ever made it- I didn’t have time to look.”

The clock chimed loudly. It was midnight. 

“Ok kids, time for bed.”

Davey started at his ceiling all night, until the morning light. Every time he closed his eyes, mush was staring at him, screaming and bloody and leg less and dying.

He sat up when he heard his mother open her door, getting changed and trudging out into the kitchen. 

“Oh David- did you sleep at all last night?”

“No mama...”

“Can you sleep at all?”

“I don’t think so”

“I’ll make you some coffee.”

And he nodded as the radio sang quietly in the kitchen, his mother humming along and swaying to the music, trying to push back the worry for her son’s mental health as Davey stared at nothing, eyes empty and emotionless, blue eyes once filled with a spark now dull. 

And she knew that look. It was the sam look her father and brothers wore after they came back from the Korean War. And she knew she’d had lost Davey. Davey has died in the war, and come back an empty corpse. Her son was dead, and this was an empty clone sent to replace him.

So Esther gave him his coffee, and went upstairs.

And then Esther prayed for god to save her son.

And then Esther placed her head on the bed, and cried.

**Author's Note:**

> Pester me on mr-billy-hargrove Please.
> 
> I need validation.


End file.
